Bishop’s Responsibilities for Young Single Adults

The First Presidency has
requested that priesthood leaders “achieve better accountability
for young single adults residing in their units. Efforts should be
made to identify, locate, and assume shepherding responsibility for
all young single adults” (First Presidency letter, April 10, 2009;
see also First Presidency letter, October 3, 2006).

Handbook 2:
Administering the Church suggests that the bishop has two
basic roles with respect to assuming shepherding responsibility for
young single adults:

First, teach correct principles to leaders about identifying
and locating individuals, and hold assigned leaders,
particularly at the ward or branch level, accountable to minister
to (or shepherd) individual young single adults. It is
usually advisable to begin by strengthening active young single
adults and then organizing them to invite their less-active peers
to return to full activity (see Handbook 2: 16.3.5,
“Finding and Inviting”).

Second, appoint and counsel with leaders regarding the
organization of programs and activities that will meet the needs
and interests of young single adults in your ward and will help
them associate with one another. “A central purpose of these
activities is to help young single adults find marriage
partners and prepare to marry in the temple and raise righteous
families” (Handbook 2: 16.2, paragraph 3;
emphasis added).

These two roles are
discussed in more detail below.

1. Teach and hold ward
leaders accountable for ministering to individual young single
adults.

As you train and follow up
with ward leaders about their roles with young single adults,
consider the following:

You work with the ward council to adapt approved programs and
activities (see Handbook 2: 16.3.5) to meet the needs of
young single adults. If you are the bishop of a conventional ward,
you assign one of your counselors to work with a counselor from the
elders quorum presidency and another from the Relief Society
presidency to make recommendations to the ward council regarding
programs and activities for young single adults (see Handbook
2: 16.3.3). If you are the bishop of a young single adult
ward, you use the ward council to accomplish the same
purposes.

You “assign specific responsibility for tracking and reporting
the attendance of young single adults to elders quorum and Relief
Society presidents” (Priesthood Department notice, November 15,
2009). Become familiar with the new fields in the Quarterly Report
that ask for accountability for young single adult attendance at
Sunday elders quorum and Relief Society meetings; read more in
Using the Quarterly Report. You may want to use that report
regularly in your interviews with the elders quorum and Relief
Society presidents, and you should invite them to share regular
reports in the ward council about their efforts with individual
young single adults. You can use that information to foster
discussions about coordinating efforts to help specific individuals
(see Handbook 2: 4.5–4.6).

In your interviews with the stake president, you make regular
reports “on the progress of young single adults” (see Handbook
2: 16.3.1, paragraph 2).

2. Organize opportunities
for young single adults to associate with one another in learning
and living the gospel.

The stake presidency has a
particularly important role to set the framework for young single
adult involvement in the Church. In many stakes, the best way to
help young single adults to meet and get to know peers is by
organizing service, social, and gospel-learning activities (see
Handbook 2: 16.3.1, paragraph 1); these activities could
be held on a stake level, on a ward level, with a combination of
wards, or even on the multistake level (see Handbook 2:
13.3.1 and 16.3.6). Handbook 2 gives the stake president
and bishops the flexibility to recommend activities that include
associations beyond your ward (see Handbook 2: 16.3.1,
paragraph 4, and 16.3.5).

Most young single adults
live in conventional (family) wards, but you may discuss with the
stake president the organization of a young single adult ward or
branch if that seems appropriate (see Handbook 1: 9.1.6
and Handbook 2: 16.3.1, paragraph 5). View a chart
comparing these two organizational configurations. In deciding
which organization configuration is best for the stake, a stake
president may consider these factors:

Do enough young single adults live close enough to one another
(with adequate transportation) and with sufficient interest to form
a young single adult ward or branch?

Are the ages and interests of the young single adults
sufficiently similar to make associating together appropriate?

Do enough worthy married priesthood leaders live in the stake
who would work well with young single adults to form a
bishopric?